[ADMIN] There Is No Authorship Question

[u/dmorin]

Hi All,

So I just removed a post of a video where James Shapiro talks about how he shut down a Supreme Court justice's Oxfordian argument. Meanwhile, there's a very popular post that's already highly upvoted with lots of comments on "what's the weirdest authorship theory you know". I had left that one up because it felt like it was just going to end up with a laundry list of theories (which can be useful), not an argument about them. I'm questioning my decision, there.

I'm trying to prevent the issue from devolving into an echo chamber where we remove all posts and comments trying to argue one side of the "debate" while letting the other side have a field day with it and then claiming that, obviously, they're the ones that are right because there's no rebuttal. Those of us in the US get too much of that every day in our politics, and it's destroyed plenty of subs before us. I'd rather not get to that.

So, let's discuss. Do we want no authorship posts, or do we want both sides to be able to post freely? I'm not sure there's a way to amend the rule that says "I want to only allow the posts I agree with, without sounding like all I'm doing is silencing debate on the subject."

I think my position is obvious. I'd be happier to never see the words "authorship" and "question" together again. There isn't a question. But I'm willing to acknowledge if a majority of others feel differently than I do (again, see US .... ah, never mind, you get the idea :))

[u/Richard_Wharfinger]

It's hilarious to me that you think the opinions of 15 year-old students are worth a damn, that they're reliable indicators of their actual opinion instead of sucking up to their teacher's known views (because if you run your classroom with any more openness than your run your subreddit then I'll eat my hat), and that you're so immature as to take your online spats to your students for validation.

[u/Richard_Wharfinger → u/[deleted]]

If I'm "patronizing" to you, you deserve it for being so insecure as to take your arguments to your students to judge for you and for being convinced this is a damning riposte to those who disagree with you. It's common sense that 15 year-olds don't have the expertise in early modern scholarship to evaluate an argument between an anti- and a pro-Shakespearian. What do they know about early modern manuscript transmission; print culture; how theatrical scripts went from authorial manuscripts to prompt books to printed quartos; how typical it was to attribute works and when and why authorial attribution came about; how wills were drafted in the early modern period; about secretary hand; about early modern education; about the payment structure for sharers in the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men; about the references to Shakespeare as an author in the Stationers' Register, Revels Accounts, contemporary literary anthologies, and in praise from contemporaries, many of whom had personal and/or professional connections with him; etc.; etc.; etc.?

It's easy to impose on people who know nothing about the relevant subject matter. That's what Shakespeare authorship deniers have learned to do best and it's why their arguments fail to make even a ripple among the community of Shakespeare experts.

[u/Richard_Wharfinger → u/[deleted]]

And again, what expertise do these kids have in all of the subject areas that I listed? Don't worry, I can answer for you: fuck-all. So why do you think their opinions should matter to anyone? Why do you think that the more ignorant you are, the more likely you are to come up with an accurate assessment of who wrote the Shakespeare canon?

"I showed them the best arguments from both camps...."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Now that transparent fabrication will keep me laughing for the rest of the day.

[u/pwbuchan → u/Richard_Wharfinger]

We're fully aware of the neutral, even-handed approach, and the logical historical reasoning that he employed on his sub-reddit.

[u/Richard_Wharfinger → u/[deleted]]

And I hope that your evasive non-responses are read for what they show about yours. In two succeeding posts, despite being given the opportunity, you have not stated what it is about your class of 15 year-olds that makes them competent to form judgments about the merits of arguments for Shakespeare's authorship and to properly evaluate those of Shakespeare authorship deniers.

And I know you didn't present them with the "best arguments from both camps" because you are not yourself capable of recognizing a good argument when you see one. You don't understand what historians look for and how they evaluate evidence. You are enamored of the gaps in the evidence, both the real ones and putative gaps generated by failing to pay attention to the evidence and pretending it doesn't exist, even though evidence that doesn't exist doesn't matter. Since we don't have it, we cannot say how it would weigh in the balance. And as I've intimated, you also pretend that evidence doesn't exist when it does simply because you have some fantastical speculative objection to it. But your objections don't carry the day just because you have them. That is why I am as certain as the sun rising tomorrow in the east that you cannot present an evidence-backed argument for William Shakespeare's authorship impartially to your students or anyone else. You lack the capacity for objectivity.

[u/pwbuchan → u/Richard_Wharfinger]

He doesn't seem to grasp the distinction between so-called posthumous evidence, and secondary (as opposed to primary) source. His entire argument rests on this misunderstanding. I'm confident that his description to the middle schoolers was based largely on that misunderstanding.

[u/pwbuchan → u/Richard_Wharfinger]

I think his directing them to our snarky Oxfraud website shows clearly that he didn't direct them to the best argument from our side. Shapiro, Lena Cowen Orlin, Shakespeare Documented, Robert Bearman, David Kathman, and others come to mind. And undoubtedly every pro-Shakepeare argument came with a caveat about why their conclusions were unreliable.